Safety Speakers Insights – More Why of Safety

I have discussed in my previous articles, the importance of giving people the “WHY” of safety. I experienced a perfect example of this recently. At the beginning of the meeting, they had one of the hotel staff serve as one of their safety speakers, explaining the emergency signals and where to go in event of extreme weather or fire, etc.. In regards to fire, they mentioned the importance of not using the elevators.

As you and I know, a percentage of people will follow instructions no matter what. For others, they will apply their own reasoning as to whether or not a particular safety rule is applicable to them or their situation. Oftentimes, they assess a situation and bypass or ignore a rule because it, “doesn’t mean this situation or set of circumstances. The problem is because they don’t know the underlying reason for the rule, the assessment is inaccurate. Safety speakers who don’t take this into account are very ineffective.

Let’s take the elevator example. Without the reasons why, someone might think, “the fire is on the 20th floor and I’m only on the 10th. Since I’m not going up, it would be faster and perhaps safer to use the elevator.” Unfortunately, that is always a bad idea. Maybe they think the reason has to do with the power going off. Once again, they may have seen the elevator motor room door on the first floor and thought the fire is too far away to cut the elevator’s power. Still a terrible idea even though well thought out, they didn’t have the right information or reason why.

Years ago, when I took a 56-hour Red Cross Advanced First Aid course, I was fortunate it was taught by firemen at their firehouse. They were great safety speakers as well as firemen. We learned from people who use the skills they were teaching everyday.

My instructor was sharing a story one day that gave me the real reason why you NEVER get in an elevator during a fire.

When there is a fire if it gets near the elevator on the floor where the fire is it melts the buttons and the electronics of that floor’s call buttons. When they melt, they act as if that floor’s call button was pushed. In the case of the person on the 10th floor thinking they were safe because the fire was ten floors away, they get into the elevator which is now being called to the 20th floor. When it arrives the doors open and because the fire seeks out any supply of oxygen it blasts through the doors and engulfs them in fire.

Sometimes people see a behavior that gives them the wrong information. People may have even seen firemen using an elevator during a fire. This mistakenly makes them think it must be OK or the firemen wouldn’t be doing it. Once again, since they haven’t heard the real reason why they make an ill-informed decision. What they don’t know is the fire fighters have a special key which shuts down the normal system and gives them total control of that elevator car using that key and the buttons above it. They can take it to any floor or even stop it between floors. The door won’t open without their command. I’m sure there are other reasons not to use an elevator in a fire but this one is good enough for me.

Ask yourself how many of your safety rules or procedures have very good reasons to be followed and do your people know those reasons?

Another advantage of giving people the reasons why is they are often interesting. People like learning things they don’t already know. This gives people another reason to pay attention when you teach them safety.

Solutions For Your Safety Challenges
When you need solutions for your safety challenges give Diane Weiss a call at 209-745-9419 and bring John to your site to discover injury preventing solutions. You can email her at diane@drebinger.com
Until next week,
I’ll be, “Watching Out For Everyone’s Safety™”
John
© 2017 John Drebinger Presentations
Permission to use granted when credited and contact information included. www.drebinger.com +1 209.745.9419

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